


Better

by needyoucap



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Endgame Fix-It, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers/Tony Stark - Freeform, Multi, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-15 01:00:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28804698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/needyoucap/pseuds/needyoucap
Summary: And then Peter is silently telling Karen to block his microphone so no one can hear him. He kneels in front of Tony, says, “Karen, can you get FRIDAY to release Tony’s gauntlet,” and she must understand what he means, and FRIDAY must understand, because when Peter picks up Tony’s right hand, his gauntlet slides off easily and it fits on Peter’s hand perfectly.“I should’ve been better,” he whispers, and then he snaps.
Relationships: Minor or Background Relationship(s), Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Comments: 2
Kudos: 107
Collections: STB Bingo: Round One, Tony Stark Bingo Mark IV





	Better

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for the Tony Stark Bingo and STB Bingo.
> 
> Tony Stark Bingo:  
> Card number: 4029  
> Square filled: K5 - Endgame fix-it
> 
> STB Bingo:  
> Square filled: I4 - "I should have been better"

_“I wanted you to be better.”_

Pepper is in front of Tony, talking to him softly. Peter’s ears are buzzing, and the words Tony had said to him echo in his head.

_“I wanted you to be better.”_

Tony’s not saying anything, just looking at Pepper. Peter can hear his shallow breathing, and then Pepper is saying, “You can rest now,” and, and, and…

And the arc reactor is dark, and Tony’s no longer breathing, and Peter feels like he can’t breathe, either, and Rhodey is hugging Pepper, and Peter _can’t breathe_.

Aside from the smell of dirt and ash and sweat, Peter can taste the salt of the tears all around him. The only dry eyes are the ones of the people who didn’t know Tony well, like the Guardians, but even some of them are crying, like Mantis. At some point Karen must put his mask up, because she’s talking to him, telling him to breathe, and he _can’t_ , doesn’t she understand?

_“I wanted you to be better.”_

He’s staring at Tony’s limp hand, the infinity stones shining like they’re full of power, full of Tony’s life force, because they are, they sucked it all out of him. He walks forward, slowly. Rhodey lets him go, busy consoling Pepper and probably assuming Peter wants to say goodbye. Steve and Bucky are on their knees by Tony’s body, whispering to him, or to each other, he doesn’t know. He knows the three of them shared something, that even though Tony had a daughter with Pepper, his heart belonged to the super soldiers. As Peter reaches them, Bucky looks up at him. “Can I…?” Peter starts, and he doesn’t know how to finish, but Bucky must understand, because he puts a hand on Steve’s shoulder and stands, drawing the other soldier away, giving Peter room to say goodbye.

And then Peter is silently telling Karen to block his microphone so no one can hear him. He kneels in front of Tony, says, “Karen, can you get FRIDAY to release Tony’s gauntlet,” and she must understand what he means, and FRIDAY must understand, because when Peter picks up Tony’s right hand, his gauntlet slides off easily and it fits on Peter’s hand perfectly.

“I should’ve been better,” he whispers, and then he snaps.

“And I wanted you to be better.”

Peter’s heart is ripped out at those words. He knows what Tony means, he knows that Tony has a low opinion of himself, and that to Tony Stark, being better than _Tony Stark_ shouldn’t be very hard, but to Peter? It’s nearly impossible. He was just trying to be as good as his favorite superhero, how is he supposed to be _better_?

And then a moment passes and Peter is seeing Tony’s eyes glaze over, seeing the light go out of them, but he blinks and it passes. Tony is telling him to return the suit, and he remembers this, it already happened, so he knows how much it should hurt, but the pain of failing Tony is nothing, nothing compared to the pain of losing him. Peter looks at his right arm, sees the red and blue and gold and orange and green and purple in his veins, and he’s hypnotized for a moment. This...is everything. He could do _anything_ . He could bring Uncle Ben back. He could bring his parents back. He could bring _Tony’s_ parents back, undo what HYDRA did to Bucky...he could bring world peace. It would be so easy. He could snap his fingers and have anything and everything he ever wanted.

And it’s hard to remember why, but he knows he shouldn’t. So he doesn’t. He just thinks, _rewind, and put me closer to him_ , and then he opens his eyes and there’s chaos around him, Tony is going for the infinity stones, only this time Peter is close enough to see it. When he shoots his webs at Tony’s gauntlet, it’s easy. Tony’s not expecting an attack from his own side, and certainly not from Peter. So when the gauntlet is on, and even Thanos is in enough shock to have frozen, Peter smiles softly at Tony, says, “I just wanted to be like you,” and snaps for the second time.

It’s bright, and his head is fuzzy, and his right arm is on fire. That’s...probably not good, but Peter can’t remember why. He sees Tony, to the right of him, and tries to reach out, and then he remembers why it’s not good that his arm is on fire. He needs his arm. Preferably both of them, but then he thinks about Tony dying, and realizes he would give both of his arms, and his legs, if it would mean saving Tony.

And then, as he blinks furiously and the room comes into focus, the memories come swarming back, and he realizes that may be what he did. He looks at Tony, who’s looking down, at his phone. He looks down at his own body, and it turns out his arm is _not_ on fire, it just feels like it is. It _is_ covered in gauze though. A lot of gauze. The gauze goes up to his shoulder, and when he lifts his left hand to feel, he realizes there are bandages on his neck and face, too. He finds himself wondering why.

“So you just wanted to be like me, huh?” His eyes dart back to Tony, whose face, he’s pleased to see, is free of any major scarring. He has bruises and cuts and scrapes, but the damage the infinity stones had done is nowhere to be seen. He realizes all that damage has been transferred to his own body, now.

“What?”

Tony...is glaring at him, but not glaring at him. Peter’s not entirely sure how a person could both be doing and not doing something, but Tony is managing it. “Yes?” he tries, and Tony’s eyes narrow further.

“Maybe I should have said this sooner, but I am _not_ the best person to emulate, Peter.” Peter shrugs and then finds out how bad of an idea that is when the finally dulling pain in his arm and shoulder roars back to life. He winces, which makes the pain in his face flare up, and Tony reaches for something. A moment later a woman in scrubs comes in.

“How are you, Mr. Parker?” she asks, and Peter blinks in surprise. He recognizes this lady, which means he’s in the tower medical bay. He thought Tony had sold the tower.

Realizing she’s waiting for an answer, Peter says, “Um, fine?”

The nurse smiles like she knows better, and asks, as she fiddles with his chart, “and how’s your pain?”

He glances at Tony. “I’ll tell Aunt May if you lie,” Tony threatens.

“I, uh, I’ve felt better,” he admits, and the nurse proceeds to give him more painkillers, and wow, either he’s on the highest dose of morphine mankind has to offer, or they’re using the stuff Tony and Bruce had developed for Steve, because the pain recedes and his brain goes fuzzy almost instantly.

“You’re probably going to pass out now, but just know that we’re gonna talk about this,” Tony says as Peter’s eyelids get heavier.

“Mmkay,” he mumbles. He’s fine with whatever scolding he’s going to get, because Tony’s there, and as the room starts to fade, he thinks he feels a warm touch on his left hand.

It turns out that he’d been in a medically induced coma for two weeks. After emergency surgery, and twelve hours in Dr. Cho’s cradle, Peter had healed enough for the doctors to bring him out of it. He learns that he almost lost his right eye, but thanks to Dr. Cho, it’s healed enough that he can even see out of it.

Almost all the Avengers had been moved into the tower while the compound was being rebuilt, including Aunt May. Aside from Tony, she’s the one at his bedside the most, catching him up on everything he missed. Tony, Steve, and Bucky are sharing the penthouse, and May tells him she saw Steve at a jewelry store two days ago. She gushes about the potential wedding for far longer than she needs to, Peter thinks.

When a familiar redhead visits him, he nearly falls off the bed in shock. She tells him how she nearly gave Steve a heart attack when he found her waiting at the top of the mountain on Vormir, Red Skull’s body at her feet, when he went to return the soul stone.

When Peter tells her that he was not the first one to snap Thanos and his army away, she shakes her head and says, “what were you thinking, маленький паучок*?” He gets the feeling it’s a rhetorical question.

Peter’s the one to nearly have a heart attack when Vision floats through the wall one day to visit him, and seriously, what the hell did he _do_ ? After a thorough search, he finds that Uncle Ben and his parents are still dead, which gives him a twinge of regret, but he knows it’s for the best. Maybe he’d just thought, _bring back everyone who Thanos killed_ , or something, but he can’t help wondering if he’s going to be walking along one day and suddenly stumble upon someone who used to be dead.

He tries not to think about it too much.

He doesn’t see Tony again until he’s released from medical and he can visit the penthouse himself. When the door opens and Vision’s disembodied voice welcomes him in, he startles.

“My apologies, Mr. Parker,” Vision says. “I forgot we have yet to be introduced. My name is JARVIS.” JARVIS is apparently Tony’s old AI, from before FRIDAY, who had recently been rebuilt.

“Nice to meet you,” Peter says to JARVIS, and then, with JARVIS’s guidance, proceeds to Tony’s workshop.

Tony looks up when he enters, and pretends to continue on with what he’s doing, but Peter can see that his hands are no longer moving. Steve and Bucky, who are on a sofa, awkwardly excuse themselves as soon as he comes in. It isn’t until Peter hops up onto the workbench behind Tony and clears his throat that Tony whirls around and says, “You have some explaining to do.”

Peter takes a deep breath. “You were the one to snap away Thanos, originally,” he says, and at Tony’s confusion, he continues. “You died. I took the gauntlet from your dead body and used it to rewind time so that I could do the snap in your place.”

Tony stares at him. It isn’t until Tony moves to stroke Peter’s face that he realizes he’s crying. “When I said I wanted you to be better than me, I meant...I meant, like, not making the same mistakes,” he says, almost laughing, and there are tears in Tony’s eyes too. “I didn’t mean _risk your life to save mine._ ”

“I had to,” Peter sniffles. “I couldn’t lose another dad.”

Tony draws him into a hug, and it’s so much better than the last one, because this time they’re not in the middle of a battle. This time they’re in Tony’s workshop, where Tony apparently brought his dead AI back to life, and even though the doctors aren’t sure how much use of his arm he’ll recover, if any, or if the scarring will ever go away, even though Peter’s in so much pain some days he can barely move, it’s worth it, because Tony is alive, and he’s here with him. Tony is here, and Natasha and Vision; Peter even heard Thor say he’d been contacted by someone he suspected was Loki. _That’s_ a can of worms he doesn’t want to open, because who knows what kind of trouble Thor’s brother will cause, even with Thanos gone, but Tony is _here_.

Eventually they let go of each other, and Tony invites Peter to help him work, and eventually Steve and Bucky come back in. Tony blushes tomato red when Steve kisses him, and Tony says “not in front of the kid, Capsicle,” so as Bucky goes in to kiss Tony as well, Steve covers Peter’s eyes, and Peter swats him away.

Later, he has a video call with Ned and MJ, and he’ll have dinner with May, and he’ll go to bed that night and wake up screaming at two AM, half from the nightmares and half from the pain, but May will come in and soothe his fears, she’ll give him the special painkillers and he’ll eventually fall asleep on the couch with his head in her lap, exhausted, at six, but it’ll be worth it.

It’ll be worth it, because he knows this time he helped make a much better ending.

**Author's Note:**

> *маленький паучок - little spider (at least according to Google translate, which I know is unreliable at best)


End file.
